Suchergebnisse

AbstractThis paper seeks to explain Austria's Islam-related politics by first suggesting that it can be best understood in terms of neo-institutionalist path-dependency and consociationalist policy-making. This is due to the fact that Austria gave Islam full legal recognition in 1912. Important institutional patterns and policies grew out of this law in the Second Republic, whose persistence we want to examine. The Islamic Religious Community constituted itself under public law as a neo-corporatist interest group for Muslims in Austria in 1979. More recently, the government's approach toward Islam has shifted. This change can be best accounted for by party competition in which the far-right Freedom Party of Austria has sought to monopolize this issue. Consequently, this paper explores the contradictions between, on the one hand, the long-established principle of state neutrality and evenhandedness when dealing with various legally recognized religious communities and, on the other hand, discriminatory Islam-related politics.

AbstractConfronted by a number of home-grown Islamic terrorist attacks, many Americans incorrectly assume that Muslim religiosity correlates with anti-American values and that the American mosque is the center of radical socialization efforts. This paper examines the nature of the relationship between mosque involvement and political engagement. It finds that mosque attendance is positively associated with political engagement only when the attendance engages congregants in ways beyond religious ritual. Attending mosque to pray does not significantly impact political identities or engagement like following politics, registering to vote, voting, or party membership, while participation in other social or religious activities at a mosque is associated with an increased probability of engagement. These results suggest that not all mosque involvement is equally beneficial for promoting political engagement and that religious participation must proactively engage with the social lives of the congregants to have a substantive political effect.

AbstractClergy members are often important political actors. Yet, scholars rarely distinguish among different types of clergy political activities. Here, I argue for three disaggregated categories of clergy political activity: personal, general congregation level, and election-specific congregation level. Data from two sources—the Cooperative Clergy Study and the Little Rock Congregations Study—demonstrate that important differences exist across these categories, with the majority of model variables significantly influencing different clergy political activitiesin different directions. For instance, a conservative ideology and affiliation with a Black Protestant church both negatively influence personal political activities, like donating to a campaign, while also positively influencing election-related political activities in the congregation, like distributing voter guides. Similarly, providential religious beliefs increase general congregation-level political activities, while decreasing personal and electoral activities. These relationships are obscured when political activity is considered in the aggregate, suggesting that clergy political activities are nuanced; different activities are driven by different motivations.

AbstractMost research on the social gospel, a religious interpretation that obliges people to care for the less fortunate and correct social inequalities, has focused on elite rhetoric. However, it is not clear the extent to which members of the public also adhere to this socioreligious philosophy. The moralistic tone of the 2010 health care reform debate has led many to argue that there is a revival of the social gospel. To what extent has this debate gained traction among citizens writ large? Which individuals will be most likely to be influenced by elite discourse that draws social gospel? Using two unique surveys and an experiment, we demonstrate that Social Gospel adherents have distinctive political attitudes. Specifically, they are more attentive to social policy issues and are more supportive of expanding the social safety net. Second, we demonstrate that elite rhetoric that draws from the Social Gospel tradition can influence policy preferences.

AbstractIn this study, we contend that distinguishing individuals who support bans onminorityreligious symbols from those who want to banallreligious symbols improves our understanding of the roots of opposition to minority religious symbols in the public sphere. We hypothesize that both groups are likely driven by markedly different motivations and that opposition to the presence of minority religious symbols in the public sphere may be the result of an alliance between "strange bedfellows," clusters of individuals whose political outlooks usually bring them to opposite sides of political debates. Drawing on a survey conducted in the province of Quebec (Canada), we find that while holding liberal values and low religiosity are key characteristics of those who would ban all religious symbols, feelings of cultural threat and generalized prejudice are central characteristics of those who would only restrict minority religious symbols. Negative attitudes specifically toward Muslims, however, also appear to motivate both groups.

AbstractThis study examines the religious-secular party cleavage in German morality politics from a new perspective by tracing politicization patterns at the individual level. It builds on the idea of issue competition and explores whether conflicts between Christian Democrats and secular parties align with the traditional denominational divide between Catholics and non-Catholics or with religiosity. By means of logistic regressions of Member of Parliaments' politicization behavior in the German Bundestag (1998–2002) with regard to three morality policies, the study provides evidence that German politics is still structured by a conflict between Catholics and non-Catholics, whereas the influence of religiosity is secondary. If party competition is at work, non-Catholics draw attention to morality policies, while Catholics refrain from doing so. This finding contradicts research pointing to a decreasing significance of Catholicism for Christian Democracy. Moreover, the study proposes an innovative way to re-examine party cleavages at the individual level and in between elections.

AbstractHow does Turkey's Presidency of Religious Affairs (Diyanet) act as an instrument of foreign policy (FP)? What are the factors that allow such an instrumentalization of Islam in Turkish FP? In addressing these questions, this paper uses semi-structured expert interviews from Bulgaria and the Netherlands. Although both countries host a sizeable Muslim minority, these populations differ in their characteristics and historical ties with Turkey. ComparingDiyanet's role in the Netherlands with its recent Turkish-Muslim diaspora, and in Bulgaria with its centuries-old Muslim minority allows us to reveal variation in the practical engagement strategies that Diyanet adopts in different country contexts. Thus, this paper advances two main claims; first,Diyanetserves as a primary FP tool of Turkey in countries with a significant Turkish-Muslim minority. Secondly, this instrumentalization destabilizes secularization projects both at home and abroad.